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Negotiators tried to reenergize the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement adopted by the U.N. on December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan aimed at fighting global warming. The Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2020, and climate negotiators are having a hard time agreeing on how to build on it and make sure it continues past that date.
“We had the car crash in Copenhagen a couple of years ago when all those massive expectations of a big global deal just fell off the table with a resounding crash,” Richard Black, the BBC’s environment correspondent, told the radio program The World.
“So part of what this is about is trying to implement some of the much smaller bits that were agreed in principle last year at the summit in Mexico, and then look at what’s possible in the years ahead.”
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
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It has been nearly 15 years since leaders from 37 industrialized countries agreed to reduce their carbon emissions as part of the Kyoto Protocol. |
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As of September 2011, 191 countries have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but the U.S. only signed and never ratified the treaty, which means it is not obligated to abide by it. While the Obama administration supported more concrete climate change regulations in 2009, tensions within the U.S. Congress have stalled progress.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, 37 countries committed to reducing four greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and sulphur hexafluoride. The target was an average reduction of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by the year 2012.
The European Union agreed to cut its emissions by 8% below 1990 levels, Japan by 7%, the United States by 7%, and Canada by 6%. Russia agreed to stay at 1990 levels, which still represents a significant reduction from its expected emissions in 2012. Not all of the countries have achieved those goals, however, and the U.S. - the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases - is not bound by the treaty.
Low-lying countries call for immediate action
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Countries like Maldives, Bangladesh, Holland and Belgium are in danger of rising seal-level caused by global warming. |
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Certain low-lying countries threatened by sea-level rise caused by melting polar ice caps are calling for immediate action.
For example, delegates from the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, are very worried that their people could become the world’s first climate refugees in the next several decades as their land continues to erode.
Two years ago, at the climate summit in Copenhagen, the delegate from the Maldives staged a publicity stunt by holding meetings six feet under water - where he said his country would be in a matter of decades if climate change isn’t addressed.
However, the countries at the current climate change conference are divided over the emissions restrictions they’re willing to agree to.
The U.S. and Canada have said they’re unwilling to make more changes until after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2020; China has developed its own five-year plan; India is increasingly hostile to emissions agreements; and the European Union and low-lying nations immediately threatened by climate change want a more aggressive agreement from all countries.
President Obama addresses Durban conference
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President Obama spoke about Wangari Maathai, who became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for "her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace |
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Although the U.S. is taking a more conservative approach to climate change than many other countries, President Obama addressed the Durban conference via a video message, encouraging countries to preserve their forest lands and follow the example of Nobel peace prize winner and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai who died earlier this year.
"Here in Durban, we can carry on her work, to...grow our economies in a way that's sustainable and that addresses climate change,” the president said. “In this you have the partnership of the United States. Delegates must remember her call in which she said: 'We must not tire. We must not give up.'"
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Joplin was able to rise from the ashes because of help from everyone. And I am eternally grateful to anyone who made that possible.
